Month: May 2016

The question that has burned in the back of the minds a lot of homeowners is if they should build a new patio or just simply buy one. Patios can be a bit tricky because they’re not relatively easy to build such as a room remodel and there’s a lot of personalization that can go into them. Let’s say you’re building a nice scenic view patio outback and you want everything to be as white as possible, there’s a lot of options and it can get confusing rather quickly.

Not only that but there’s so many practical situations to deal. Sure, there are your design issues but do you even have the room to expand on your patio, what about the integrity of your structure? Can it handle adding some additional space onto the patio? Depending on the design and setup of your house, there’s a lot of questions you’re going to have to answer before you take the dive and start building a new patio.

To make this process a bit easier on yourself and others around you involved in the decision making process, what you can do is start up a list of pros and con to building your own patio versus just simply buying one. Remember, buying a patio outright not only has to match your house but it has to be transported, setup and things can get costly very quickly. Or you can hire a professional brick and patio company such as Pave Your Way Masonry and Blacktop

The pros of building a patio

When you build a patio, you can create a design that’s specific to your home environment.

You can include your own custom design features in the build.

You can concurrently plan your patio around other renovation projects around the home-owner’s

The cons of building a patio

Building your own patio can be a lot of time and money that needs to be committed to that alone. This will make things far more complex if you’re also doing other projects in sync with the patio project.

When patios are built, most people don’t have time to do it themselves, so it’s usually done through people like contractors or other third-parties.

The pros of buying a patio

When you buy a patio from the get go, you’re getting a patio that has not only been approved by any council that needs to approve it but it’s coming with everyone you already want in it.

Professional companies handle all of the approvals required and the plans required to build it.

All of the project costs will be presented up front and there’s never going to be any surprises as to getting your final bill.

You don’t have to second guess what you want as there’s a multitude of designs available.

The cons of buying a patio

Of course, with buying a patio, this means you won’t get your own custom design suited towards your needs.

I believe every homeowner at one point in their life goes through this phase where at some point, they just don’t feel their home is good enough or they get tired of looking at the exact same thing day in and day out. This isn’t out of the ordinary and this is just natural instinct. It’s not really uncommon to become content with something you used to have so much love for. When it comes time, maybe you just need to look into potentially renovating your home.

Some people don’t even do it for the added value to a property. They see something they don’t like about the home or just simply want to change things up a bit. However, a lot of people don’t know just how much value renovation adds to an existing property, assuming everything is done correctly and you’re not in a terrible neighborhood.

Time is one of the biggest factors for people who aren’t overly concerned with their budget an it’s hard to measure just how much time a project is going to take. Do you have a specific deadline that you NEED this project to be done by? Do you feel it’s a reasonable expectation and that you can actually have this project done by then? What about a contractor or a team? Do you feel they could cut down significantly on the time it will take to do your project since you won’t have the time to do it?

The problem with any kind of renovation is that it’s really hard to measure how much time exactly a project will take. There’s so many variable factors that could play into the project and something that’s supposed to take 4 weeks ends up turning into a 3 month job.

Motivation – Some people honestly just lose the motivation in a project. A lot of people love the de-construction of a room but it’s the construction that they’re not looking forward to. The only real motivation is the reward and feeling of accomplishment after you’ve finished the project.

Planning – Properly planning out and taking some estimated measurements in goals to how much time you think a project will take is also very helpful. Maybe one day you’ll be hanging up drywall, the next day you’ll be letting the mud dry, the day after that you’ll be sanding and the day after that you’ll be painting. All of these things need to be planned out to give you an idea at least of how much time something is going to take.

The Scope – What exactly needs done? I’m not talking about sitting down and saying “I want this room re-built”. Of course, you have a general idea of what needs done but what is the full scope of the current project? What all needs to be done to considered done? This is what a lot of new renovators struggle with. You need to correctly map out, step by step what needs to happen in order for a project to be considered wrapped up.